


you save everybody, who saves you?

by iron_spider



Series: stay at home [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: Tony doesn’t sleep, because he can’t, because too many things are plaguing him, most of all where Peter is and what he’s doing. Tony has a good view of the hallway through the windows to his room, and he stares and stares until his eyes cross, until he hallucinates, until he knows he’s going insane.He sees Peter sneaking into the med bay at about four in the morning.The kid’s mask is off and he’s got two short, harsh slashes across his cheek, and he’s bleeding from a slice across his neck. His suit is ripped in a few places and he’s holding onto his middle, and Tony can see his hands are shaking.It’s like something splinters in Tony’s already broken brain, like his world narrows and there are hazy edges, both weakness and strength entwining in his veins when he sees Peter struggle up onto one of the beds in the main atrium, starting to tend his wounds without calling anybody to help.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: stay at home [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689145
Comments: 86
Kudos: 673





	you save everybody, who saves you?

It’s been.

It’s been—

It hasn’t been long enough, because Tony’s brain is still scrambled, and his body is still broken. The scarring still crawls across his right side in smoky tendrils, and he doesn’t like anyone touching it, not even Pepper when they’re alone, not even Helen when she’s checking him out, not even Peter when he’s holding his hand. They still don’t know if he’ll lose the arm, and they talk about that in hushed tones behind his back, like he can’t handle it, like they know he can’t handle it. 

What can he fucking handle?

It’s been—two months. Two months, since Tony dropped to his knees and made a decision that he thought would result in his death. There were so many times in his life before that moment where he did the same—thought he was dying for something that was worth it, and he’d wanted it, he could deal with it, his own death. He’d been rolling towards death his whole life, with all his poor choices, and he was lucky to die for people he loved—

—but this time he didn’t want to go. He felt selfish. He was willing, he was...he was willing, because his love was bigger than it ever had been before, but that made it worse. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to leave them. He’d finally found what he wanted, what he needed. All the elements had finally come together like a completed puzzle. 

He didn’t want to die, but he knew he was going to.

But he didn’t. And now he’s here and he’s someone else. He can barely fucking walk, he can barely fucking move, and Helen keeps using the word _unprecedented_. She’s got no idea how to track his progress. They don’t have any examples to follow. They don’t have shit. They’ve got his wasted, useless body, taking up space. 

Tony doesn’t wanna be this guy. He doesn’t want to be this fucking guy. 

“And this one is on a big billboard facing I4 in Orlando,” Pepper says, leaning her head on his good shoulder, laying on the bed beside him. She’s flipping through photos on her tablet, each one showing yet another Iron Man tribute. There are hundreds of them now, thousands in different places all over the world. He gets tons and tons of letters each day. 

“So kids can pay their respects on the way to Disney World,” Tony says. 

“Disney World is probably gonna do a meet and greet with Iron Man,” Pepper says. “You know. Costumed guy, like Chip and Dale.”

“Oh. Cute.” Tony sighs, and he reaches up, pinching the bridge of his nose. His arm shakes and he could barely get through his walking exercises earlier, and he just feels like crumbling into nothing.

He was supposed to die. He didn’t want to, but he was supposed to, and now he’s a shell of what he once was. He’s glad he’s here, he’s glad he’s with them, but he’s not the goddamn type to lay around and watch the world move on without him. He did that once and it was a mistake, a result of severe depression and a mark of his failure, and he doesn’t want to do it again. Morgan, for all her love and attachment to him, is best friends with every remaining Avenger, and Tony has never been so angry about a puzzle being completed without him than when he heard she and Sam finished off the Eiffel Tower one while he was taking one of his long naps.

And Peter. Peter is out there helping anybody and everybody, and coming back here bloody and beaten more often than not. Everything irritates Tony nowadays, from the way the water comes out of the faucet to the irregular beat of his heart, but that gets him most of all. And the kid refuses help, actively avoids Rhodey and everybody else who says they’ll help him, because he and Tony are cosmically linked in the way that they both have people who love them but they both go off on their own, like dumbasses, to keep everyone else safe. Seeing his own reflection in someone he values as much as Peter makes Tony feel insane, throws up walls and roadblocks and all kinds of confusing shit in his head, because he wants to be mad at him, wants to scream and throw tantrums and work in tandem with May to tell the kid never to leave the facility again, but he knows he’d do all the same things Peter is doing. Make all the same choices.

It’s his karmic justice, watching Peter step into the line of fire. That’s what Rhodey always says. But in the end, after everything, Peter is just better than Tony. 

And Peter was dead. Peter was dust, Peter was a shining memory floating around Tony’s head every moment of every day, present in every fleck of sunlight, silent, silent, gone—and now he’s back and Tony is aching with the fear that he’ll die again. Die in a way that they can’t get him back, because Tony himself is torn, laid up, miles and miles from being worth anything to anyone. 

“Where are you going?” Pepper asks, brushing Tony’s hair back now.

“What?” Tony asks, his neck hurting when he looks at her. “Did I move?”

“You’re far away in your eyes,” she says.

“Don’t go getting all metaphorical on me,” Tony says. “I never had the brain capacity for that shit, and now—”

“What are you thinking about?” Pepper asks, laying it out plain.

Tony sighs. He tries to shift on the bed a little bit without her help, but she offers it anyway, latching onto his arm. He grits his teeth and moves so he’s sitting up more, and his whole right side still feels like it’s on fire. Burning up, from the inside. His right arm isn’t worth shit anymore, he can’t put any weight on it without it threatening to collapse.

“Where are the kids?” he asks. He knows it’s late—well, late for him, considering he falls asleep at like eight now.

“Morgan’s watching TV with Cassie and Hope, but she’s got bedtime in like half an hour, and Peter...Peter…” 

She looks like she’s trying to think on her feet for a lie, and Tony sighs, leaning back on the pillows. 

“He’s gonna check in with me and Rhodey when he gets back,” Pepper says. 

“Uh huh,” Tony says, trying not to imagine what the hell the kid is getting into now. The world is putting itself back together but it’s still a goddamn mess, and things aren’t like they were when Peter first disappeared. They never will be again. Is he even adapted to all that? Are these new, shithead villains allowing him to adapt? Tony knows the Raft lost a bunch in both snaps, in all the insane confusion. Where are they? Are they going after Peter?

He clears his throat. “Just remind Helen that I’m tired of being down here and I need to occupy the room you’re occupying before I have an entire fucking meltdown.” He knows he sounds petulant, but he doesn’t care. Pepper’s heard it plenty of times before.

She smiles, and leans in, kissing him on the cheek. “I’ll let her know.”

~

Tony doesn’t sleep, because he can’t, because too many things are plaguing him, most of all where Peter is and what he’s doing. Tony has a good view of the hallway through the windows to his room, and he stares and stares until his eyes cross, until he hallucinates, until he knows he’s going insane. 

He sees Peter sneaking into the med bay at about four in the morning.

The kid’s mask is off and he’s got two short, harsh slashes across his cheek, and he’s bleeding from a slice across his neck. His suit is ripped in a few places and he’s holding onto his middle, and Tony can see his hands are shaking.

It’s like something splinters in Tony’s already broken brain, like his world narrows and there are hazy edges, both weakness and strength entwining in his veins when he sees Peter struggle up onto one of the beds in the main atrium, starting to tend his wounds without calling anybody to help.

Tony pulls his IV out with a wince, unhooks the heart monitor, and swings his legs over the side of the bed with every ounce of determination inside him. His cane is beside the door from where he left it earlier, and he’s counted the steps from his room to the main atrium a thousand times, and he can definitely make it. 

He struggles over to the cane and grips it with his good hand like he wants it to break, and he doesn’t want to be an old man anymore. He called himself an old man years and years up until he actually became one, in a small, earth-shattering moment that changed him and everything else. 

He hones in on Peter when he gets out into the hallway. 

“What are you doing?” he calls.

Peter immediately looks up from his work on his side, and his brows furrow. He jumps off the bed with a little groan and rushes over to him. “Tony, what are _you_ doing, you’re not supposed to be just wandering around—”

“It’s my facility,” Tony says, leaning into Peter when he comes over to support him. “I own it. I’ll wander. I can wander.”

Peter scoffs and moves him over to the closest chair, and Tony’s stupid cane clangs on the ground every time they take a step. Peter helps him sit and Tony can hear him wheezing.

“What happened to you?” Tony asks, leaning his cane against the wall. “What the hell are you doing out there, Pete? Shit, you keep coming back all fucked up and it’s...it’s making me nervous, kid. Recall, you were recently...very much _not around—_ ”

“I’m okay,” Peter says, patting Tony’s shoulder. He pulls up another chair and sits right next to him. “It’s just—a couple flesh wounds, you know? They’ll heal fast. I heal fast.”

“What about emotional scars?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows, his heart still hammering from his brief stint on his feet. “Those stick, bud, and I know. I’ve got lots of ‘em. They’re littered all over me.”

Peter stares down at the ground for a second, bleeding. Tony sighs and reaches back up behind him, grabbing a box of Band-Aids from the shelf. It hurts to reach, it hurts to walk, it hurts to breathe, but it hurts worse to see the kid messed up like this. He takes one of the Band-Aids out and hands it over, replacing the box on a lower shelf. “Please put that on your face.”

Peter sighs and opens it up, looking at Tony as he sticks it there, trying to keep out the bubbles. Tony knows they have to clean it out, too, and the other one across Peter’s neck, let alone whatever’s going on with his ribcage. 

Tony’s mind races.

“Why aren’t you giving yourself a break?” he asks. “Huh? Sam is laying around here like he’s on vacation. Clint’s whole family is staying in the west wing and nobody’s left for a week, we check on them to make sure they’re all still goddamn alive. Even Bruce is just sitting around playing video games with Thor, and me, I’m the biggest bag of bones there is, Pete, I’m just—”

“You’ve done enough,” Peter says, fast, and Tony sees that his eyes are red. 

“ _You’ve_ done enough,” Tony repeats. “You’re busting your ass every night, doing God knows what, along with trying to adapt back into school—”

“You save everybody, but who saves you?” Peter asks, loud. His jaw is set, his brows furrowed. “You saved the whole entire world, no, universe, sorry, _universe_ —you risked your life, you almost—you almost died, and most people are rightfully thankful and paying tribute but there are still assholes out there who want to—who want to try and hurt you, threaten you while you’re—while you’re recovering, and I found them and I—I’m just—I’m the one that saves you, okay? It’s me. I’m doing it, my job, you saved me, you’ve saved me—more than one time, multiple times, and I just—you’re—you’re too important to me to allow these guys to skulk around and make plans against you and I just—I gotta take care of it, my wounds heal and you’re safer and it’s...it’s fine.”

It’s quiet, after that. The kid’s rambling used to irritate him, in the beginning. Then he started to find himself endeared by it, and then he went looking for it, and then he missed it so desperately it was like he was missing a limb.

But this is like…this is…

He reaches out and takes Peter’s hands. He squeezes them, puts all of his might into his right. He doesn’t think about the scarring or being embarrassed about it, not right now. It doesn’t matter. “Peter.”

“Don’t tell me not to do it, because I’m—”

“I love you, kid,” Tony says, his voice breaking. “I love you. Okay? Just...it’s important to me that you know that. I don’t say it to a lot of people, but you’re—you—”

“I love you too,” Peter says. He squeezes Tony’s hands back, and looks miserable. 

Tony wonders what the hell he’s found. He wonders if he’s even willing to share. He doesn’t think he has the strength to push him on it, not right now. “I know, after hearing all that, that there’s no way I can tell you to stop, like, not even if I special ordered those churros you like from Coney Island—”

“Nope, but it’s tempting,” Peter says, laughing a little bit.

“Just…please let Rhodey help you,” Tony says. “Please, Pete. Rhodey, Sam, Clint, Strange—please, please, Jesus, kid, let them help you. Let them help you with this, however the hell you’re going about it, let them help you with bank robberies and ATM holdups and stolen bikes and bodega brawls. Okay? Okay? You want me safe, I want you safe too, and that’s the way it’s gonna happen until I can suit back up and fly out there with you.”

Peter looks at him a particular way, when he says that. Like new hope dawns in his eyes. Tony hasn’t said anything about suiting up since—well, he hasn’t. Not at all. He hasn’t really considered it, since even the smallest things have felt insurmountable. But Peter, his loyalty, his love and dedication, shit, that’s...Tony doesn’t know how he’s earned that. If he’ll ever be truly deserving of it. But he wants to repay it. 

“Please,” Tony says, squeezing the kid’s hands again. “I know I’m stubborn. I know May is stubborn. Don’t be stubborn like us. Not about this. Let us be stubborn, you be safe.”

Peter swallows hard and nods. “Okay,” he says, gently. “Fine. I’ll—I’ll give Rhodey the information and—have him go along with me, next time.”

“Good,” Tony says, relief in his shoulders. 

“You gotta get back to bed,” Peter says, letting go of Tony’s hands and wincing to his feet. “For real. Pepper and Morgan would knock me into next Tuesday if they knew I was the reason you were running around.”

“Running around, please,” Tony says, watching him move over to the stock cabinet. “I’ll be doing marathons around this place if you don’t call Helen right this instant. Then she’ll have to deal with me on the ground and whatever the hell is going on with you.”

“I feel bad for her, dealing with us,” Peter says, looking over at him. 

“Don’t worry,” Tony says. “I’m gonna give her as much money as she wants and a spa weekend, once her favorite spa reopens.”

“Good,” Peter says. “Okay, I’ll call her, lemme just—get some things ready for her, make it easy—”

The moment strikes Tony, suddenly. So unbearably real. Peter’s alive again. Alive. He’s really here, and he cares so goddamn much. “Pete,” Tony says. 

“Yeah?” Peter asks, glancing over at him again. 

Tony has been overwhelmed for two months now. Longer than that, if he thinks about it—five years, really, since Titan, since an empty grave and so much crying he nearly drowned in it—but the past two months he’s been a different person. But Peter still wants to protect that person. Peter still wants to stand by him, and for some reason, the others do too. Pepper, Morgan, Happy, Rhodey—his family, and the others, his team. Were they ever really a team before? Well, they are now. And the kid is the best of them. 

If Peter thinks he’s worth protecting, worth saving, maybe that means all this turmoil is worth it. That all these little steps, despite how tedious and tiresome, might lead to him becoming...himself, again. And Peter is making sure there’s a place for him to come back to.

“Thank you,” Tony says, nodding to himself, a lump in his throat. 

Peter smiles broadly, and holds his head high. “No. Thank _you_ ,” he says, right back.


End file.
